SCENE AT. A CHICAGO FIRE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1650, 22 October 1887, Page 4

SCENE AT. A CHICAGO FIRE.

A terrible scene was lately witnessed at a fire in Chicago. A three-storey house in Archer avenue was discovered to be on fire about 3 o’clock in the morning, A number of people living in the buiidingwere rescued either dead or dying from the effects of smoke and flames. It was supposed for a time that no one remained in the burning building, but it was found that in the confusion Mrs Trugo, wife of one of the tenants, with her two-year-old child, had been overlooked, Finding herself in danger, and being unable to descend the stairway, the woman ran to a front window with her child in her arras and cried for help, A fireman at once rushed up the flamisg stairs. By the time he reached them all hope of escape by the stairway, with such a burden as the woman' and her child was impos- . sible, • Then the fireman thought of the bed cord, and tearing it out bound the woman and her baby with it, and pushed them through the window. He paid out the rope until, from the heat and smoke, he was ready to lall to (he floor, and then he fastened the end to the bedpost and fled. The rope w>s 100 short, and instead of dropping the wrman and child to the ground or within reach of those below, he had suspended them in front of s first-floor window, from which the fire poured as from a furnace door. There the woman and her child swung, 10ft or 12ft from the ground, writhing, shrieking, struggling as the fire sw<pt, over Hum. But singular'y the, flames which were burning the woman.and child left the rope in'act, Captain William H. Cowan thereupon seizing a ladder threw it up to the blazuig window, and with ftn axe mounted and stood m an upper rung, which soon was in flames, tie had deliberately-'entered the .flames, and as th"y encircled him from helmet to boots he struck at the rope. Hecoulu not see, and struck with inaccurate aim. Once, twice, as the clothing began to fall from him, he struck in vain. At the third stroke the blade cut the rope. Simultaneously the burning ! adder broke and the three'h azing human brings fell to ground, The baby was a'ready dead, and the mo'lnr died u few hours later, and the captain was, it is feared, fa'ally injure 1.